Pentagon Jr Getting Traction
by fantasticly-anonymous
Summary: Lucha Underground, Season two: Ever wonder what happened to Pentagon Jr. after that back breaking fight against Matanza 'The Monster' Queto? Wanna know what came of Vampiro tagging along for the ambulance ride? So did I! Rated T for blood, medical talk about needles and medical procedures, some swearing, and a good bit of Vampiro weirdness.


**Spoiler alert for anyone who hasn't already seen season two!** **So, yep. I was watching through Lucha Underground, minding my own business, when suddenly: Matanza smashed Pentagon Jr. through the announcers table! What!? People got thrown into that thing all the time and it'd never been broken before!** **Then Vamp jumped up and took the ambulance ride** ** _with_** **him, and I was wondering** ** _hard core_** **What had come of that.**  
 **The next time we saw Pentagon on the show, I'd already written a good chunk of this to answer my own questions!** **Hopefully it will answer some of yours too!** **:D**  
 **Hope ya'll enjoy the ride!**

You'd be surprised the kinds of things embarrass a hospital. Sorta things that make all the on calls and residents flush red and promise never to talk about in public. Things the orderlies, nurses -'specially Head Nurses-, and even commissary staff deny ever went down.  
Things like: a patient going missing somewhere between the X-Rays and trying to get someone to fill out the rest of the paper work, "Darn these stupid wrestlers with 'no _legal_ names on record'!"

Yep. 'Xactly the kind of thing a hospital would just as, if not _more_ so, happily forget. Easier said than done, but only by a little. Considering the admission forms had little more than height, approximate weight, some identifying markers, and suspected injuries listed out on them.

They had a contract with the Temple which clearly stated, "No staff member nor person accompanying a staff member may, at any point, remove the mask of any Luchador brought in from Dario Cueto's Underground Temple, unless such is necessary in the saving of said Luchador's health or life. In such a situation, the mask is to be removed only so much and so long as is deemed necessary -'necessary' to be determined by ranking attendant- for administration of sufficient life saving care."  
A whole lot of words to say, "mitts off the masks, or else."

Though this 'Pentagon Jr.' -seriously?- **needed** X-Rays, manual examination, and an anti-inflammatory injection in two separate places, the ranking had deemed it safe to let the mask be.  
Honestly, she'd been a little wary of what might go down if any of her staff _attempted_ removing the thing. You did **not** want a two hundred plus pound trained martial artist waking up to some stranger trying to unlace what many understood to be the equivalent of their face and remove it from their head. Least of all one of those who gave them a good reason for suspecting fracture or _fractures_ of the vertebrae.  
And she **definitely** didn't want someone attempting making quick work of removing it and inadvertently giving their potentially incensed patient a deadly weapon with which to 'defend' themselves.

As the wing understood it: the removal of a fighter's mask was considered the ultimate disgrace. They weren't interested in adding disgrace to grave injury. Especially not when they were all pretty sure they wouldn't like what might be found _under_ this particular mask. With a name like 'Pentagon', better watch out.

The technicians breathed a sigh of relief when the X-Rays came back unimpeded. Nobody'd wanted to cut off the wrestler's... outfit either. Perhaps with good reason.

It was decided before the technicians and ranking on call left the observation room that 'Pentagon Jr.' wasn't gonna need surgery. "Sorry Dr. Patel. We all know you love putting pins in people's spines, but this guy doesn't need any. No, he doesn't ' _need_ ' any either. Thank you."  
They were discussing it as they exited the tech slash observation room, handed a clip board off to the orderly near the door and motioned for him to bring the patient out of the definitely radiation free X-Ray theater, and started a brisk walk -the only kind of walk anyone did around there- to their next destination. The patient being wheeled behind them by the sour looking, tatted up orderly.

That's where something went wrong. Somewhere between the room with the big X-Ray machine and the room where they put patients for a while as they discuss what kind of traction would best benefit the spine and for how long the infirmed was gonna be laid up:  
The patient, everything the fighter had on him when he's been brought in, and a clip board with sheets of important diagnostics and at least one printed out X-Ray showing a couple'a neat fractures in two vertebrae -one thoracic and one lumbar-, disappeared. No trace left behind. Just, **gone**.  
Too bad none of the team had been paying attention to the light squeaking of the gurney's wheels growing more and more distant behind them, until it couldn't be heard at all.

Dr. Stillwater, the ranking on call, was proud that her team was able to keep it cool. Cool as could be expected anyway.  
They called the heads of departments, asking whether they'd received a comatose masked wrestler by accident, made sure he wasn't somehow roaming the halls with a broken back, and radioed security. Hoping against hope that there wasn't a wanna be body snatcher in the hospital, taking their freshest patient, thinking he was on his way... out.

What they didn't stop to think about, was the fact that the orderly who'd been waiting outside the X-Ray theater, was a stranger to every last one of them.

Meanwhile, halfway across town, making good time even with the sirens and lights off -no traffic that time of night-, a 'borrowed' ambulance wound its way into a dark, little used alley. The front door opened, and out stepped the six foot plus retired wrestler become Lucha Underground announcer: Vampiro. Still dressed in a stolen set of orderly's scrubs, hands hidden in a pair of sterile gloves.

Glancing around to make sure their wasn't anyone sleeping in the nearby shadows, Vamp walked 'round to the rear of his hot ride and peered in the window.  
Yep. Still secured to the secured stretcher.

He turned and took in the four or so cars which were parked up and down the alley curb. He walked up to the oldest, least fortified of them, and jimmied the driver door open without too much hassle. The window had been left open just a crack, and once he stuck his head inside, he understood why.  
The thing smelled of cat urine. **Bad**. Nasty.

Vamp shook his head, ducked out to suck in a breath of fresh air, and went to work gently hot wiring the poor junk heap. Praising his memory of his many exploits back in his 'glory days' for reminding him which wire went where.

He made sure the engine would turn over and that the headlights and turn signals were working before opening the back door and grimacing as the stench of cat.. weewee spilled out to fill the alley.

The bulk that was known worldwide as Vampiro, stalked to the loading dock of the ambulance, propped the doors wide open, and maneuvered the stretcher out and over to the waiting maw of a ratty passenger bench.  
He'd seen EMT load and unload plenty fighters over the years to have the steps memorized. He must have left some to be desired in the execution though, because he heard a low moan raised, presumably, in protest to one too many jostles.

"Pentagon?" No response, so Vampiro started undoing the buckles, knowing that there was no way to bring the stretcher along in this small car. Not even the more compact and potentially life saving backboard had a chance of fitting.  
He was just gonna have to go for it... and pray for the best.

He reached the last buckle, up around the patient's shoulders, and nearly jerked away at the sight of two practically glowing, white eyes, half open to the night sky.

"Pentagon?" After a moment, there was a heavy lidded blink, then the eyes sought out the source of the noise. When they locked with Vampiro's, the entire face seemed to light up under the mask. However dimly aware he was, Pentagon knew that he was face to face with his-

"... Maestro?" It sounded, and looked, as if speaking that one word had taken all the energy in his tank. Was that a bad sign? Or just _a_ sign?

Vamp put a hand to the top of his pupil's head and touched their foreheads for a moment. Glad that the 'Monster' Matanza hadn't yet stolen the best thing that had happened to him in nearly a decade.

He pulled away and looked his charge in the eyes. "Are you ready, my son? You must go to a place much darker than you've ever been if you are to come back from this," he asked, laying a gentle hand to the kid's chest, reassured to feel the heart beating underneath.

"Cero... miedo. Porqué..."

Vampiro's mouth set in a hard line as his disciple's eyes unfocused and closed. "Porque tú eres Pentagon Jr." He finished for the Luchador, glad at least that he wouldn't be forced to subject his student to the pain of being moved without a proper stretcher while he was conscious.

It almost scared him that Pentagon remained unresponsive through the process of being stuffed into the back seat of a three door sedan -one door was crunched so bad it _wouldn't_ open-, driven five mph over the speed limit, even over bumps in the road, back to the Lucha Underground Temple, and then jostled directly into Vamp's personal _four_ door.  
He'd never been happier with his decision to always park a few blocks from the Temple. He didn't like the hustle and bustle of trying to get out of a busy parking lot, especially not at the end of a long day.  
Plus, here there was no one around to see him making the old switcheroo. Nor him parking the stolen car in place of his and driving off, a lightly panting passenger still cramped up even in his more spacious back seat.

It was even fairly unlikely anyone would notice the old junk heap was missing, for a few days anyway, especially considering the tags were months expired. Vamp gave himself a mental kick in the rear, as he caught sight of the discrepancy while pulling away.  
Expired plates could get you caught _real_ quick.  
Always check the plates kiddies. But don't steal cars.  
At least, not until you've checked those plates.

"Pentagon?" He'd asked every few minutes. Just to check whether the Luchador was coming around.  
He wasn't sure if he should be glad about it, but Pentagon stayed **out** the entire drive, which gave him more time to himself. Time he spent planning out what he hadn't had the presence of mind to think about on the ambulance ride to the hospital and through the quick change he'd done after arriving there.  
You'd be surprised how little attention anyone pays to orderlies. Even the other orderlies. The things you can steal!

Vampiro'd swiped a number of useful things while roaming the halls in search of his disciple. Pant bands and the cuffs of _really_ long socks make great hiding places, by the way. Then he'd made sure to take anything that looked like it might come in handy while he'd put the stretcher back inside the abandoned ambulance.  
This was gonna be awesome! Well, except for the whole... Pentagon having a broken back thing. Vampiro'd seen the X-Rays. Briefly. It wasn't pretty.

Thankfully, though not really, Vampiro'd suffered his own share of back injuries throughout his career, and felt that he was pretty qualified for the job he'd lined up for himself: Rebuilding Pentagon Jr.

He drove, obeying every traffic law he could stand to, straight to Vamp's front door. Knowing that the goody two shoes wasn't likely to turn away a Luchador in need, and that keeping the tight wad preoccupied probably wasn't going to be much of a problem anyway.  
Vamp -or Ian, as some knew him-, wasn't big on house guests, but what he didn't know, wasn't necessarily going to hurt him.

Vampiro would have taken Pentagon somewhere more secure, like their secret dojo, but he needed to be able to keep an eye on those fractures and... "Yep," he thought, reaching into the back seat, leaving only one hand on the wheel, and groping around until his fingers found Pentagon's shoulder. On that fever as well.  
He couldn't do that very well if he needed to _go_ somewhere in order to **see** his disciple.

No. Ian's house it was. He'd decided.

He parked as close as possible to the house's side entrance, turned off the engine, applied the parking brake, and shoved his car door open. Taking care to be quiet so as not to disturb any nosy neighbors who happened to be home and awake, or _almost_ awake, the retired Luchador entered his house, turned on a low lumens sconce light in the living room, and was pleased to see that his alter ego hadn't yet again left the couch a terrible mess. He was gonna _need_ that, after all.

As reminiscent of dragging a corpse as it was -don't ask-, Vampiro knew that grabbing the _persistently_ unconscious fighter from behind and under the arms and dragging the rest of him, was gonna be _way_ more possible than carrying the Luchador.  
Vampiro had multiple old back injuries after all, what's to be expected?!

So he dead man dragged the thankfully still fully kitted out Pentagon across several feet of craggy concrete driveway, up the steps of a small stoop, and into his- er, _Ian's_ living room. All as silently as possible, while moving one of the heaviest 'dead weights' he'd ever needed to move in his life. Pentagon's Luchador outfit taking the brunt of any damage that might have been done otherwise. To his epidermis, anyway.  
The muscles, bones, and ligaments underneath though? Those could have shifted or pulled enough in just the wrong way that the kid could lose feeling in-  
No. Vampiro'd see to it that those fractures knitted together better than any doctor could have made them.

He heaved the upper body, then the lower body of his disciple onto the couch, then wasted no time gathering up the 'acquired' medical paraphernalia from the trunk of his car.

After giving the street a visual sweep to make sure no one had borne witness to him _dragging_ an unconscious **masked wrestler** into their mild mannered neighbor's house, he secured all doors and got to work.

He was going to start by checking Pentagon's eyes for even dilation and light response, but huffed and decided he really didn't know how those freaky _white_ orbs of his worked anyway, so he might as well skip that step.

Instead he removed the wrappings from the closest of his disciple's limp hands and pinched the skin across the knuckles. Yep. Mild dehydration.  
"Better get a line going regardless," he figured, knowing he was gonna need it in order to administer pain killers and liquid life savers no matter the need for a bag of hydration.  
Between that knock down, drag out fight against the Temple 'Monster', and the kid's early 'liberation' from the clutches of a well meaning, though laughably narrow minded, hospital staff: he was gonna be needing fluids. And seeing as how he still wasn't responding to his **name** , nor squeezing Vampiro's hand back, Pentagon wasn't gonna be drinking much of anything for a **while**.  
Was the broken back mentioned?

Intravenous it was.  
Vampiro tied off a nice length of rubber around his patient's upper arm, coaxed a vein into showing itself, and breathed deeply to steady his hands as he unpackaged the sterile needle and IV line.

Just a drop of Crimson blood beaded around the puncture site. Just a big, plump enough drop to catch and hold his attention.  
Awe, man! He should have known this would happen! La raza didn't call him 'Vampiro' for nothing.

He knew any medical professional on the planet would be fired and their license revoked for doing exactly what he felt a gut deep compulsion to do just then, but if he tried to resist the urge...  
So the veteran ring warrior kept his hands steady as possible, knowing full well one small jerk could cause bruising or lacerations to a delicate vein, and lowered his head, almost as if in prayer.

With a great deal of concentration, and even more self control, Vampiro -emulating every one of his namesakes throughout a long, _long_ , sordid history in the annals of Gothic literature-, breathed deeply the faint smell of iron on the air, and lapped up the welling red temptation. Careful, even through his bloodlustfull haze, to not contaminate the needle.

Okay, so, probably should have guessed it: but, tasting someone's blood while you were trying to _save their life_? Pretty shit-tastic idea! You know, just, **overall**!  
Now all Vampiro could think about was how satisfying it would be to, you know, remove that large bore needle from that sweat drenched arm and -optimally employing many, many teeth-, get that taste all up in his mouth!  
He hadn't sucked somebody dry in... that one a couple years back didn't count; they were already bleeding when he got there... a _long_ ass time. Too long.

Too long he'd let the soft, 'Guardian Angel' volunteer run the show! It was **HIS** time to shine! Ooh, this was a long time coming. He was going to enjoy sinking his teeth into that comatose arm and-

"Maes...tro?"

Vampiro froze. The needle still right where he'd put it, in the vein of that arm full of fresh blood, nearly an entire two minutes earlier.  
The cultist licked his lips, a shiver of appreciation running down his spine when a reminder of that snack met his taste buds, and raised his head enough to bring a mask into view. A mask covering a face which was lolled in his direction, eyes decidedly closed.

A whoosh of fresh air filled his lungs and, like a light turning on, his head cleared.

"...Pentagon?" It came out as a whisper. And was met by silence. Had the kid spoken in his sleep? Or 'coma'?

Whatever the case, it was fortunate it had been loud enough and, now that he thought about it, the _right_ word. Vampiro'd had... 'meals' in the past who called out for him to, "Stop! Please, I'm begging you!", or, "¡Tener compasión! ¡Tengo niños!" -sometimes through gags, so not always that easy to make out, really-, but he'd rarely been interested in anything they had to say. Unless it had to do with their having Hepatitis or some such, but experience proved that they were usually lying anyway.  
He'd always supposed meals were entitled to exercise their primal instincts: Scrambling madly towards the light, willing to say anything to keep from literally being dragged into the darkness.  
Peons.

Vampiro shook his head, his gaze lingering on that mask for one more second, then turned his attention back on that huge-ass needle he was _still_ lancing through the Luchador's skin.  
Well, all needles look huge when you know they have to go _into_ you, but whatever. It was a medical instrument with a cannula and- uh, just- had to get it right and- _Finally_! It was IN!

Pointedly **not** doing a little happy dance, the living breathing piece of history secured the line down with more tape than he'd ever seen put on a patient in an actual hospital, and _then_ wondered what the hell he was supposed to hang the drip bag from. The line wasn't long enough to connect it to the ceiling. Which would be weird anyway.

He removed the rubber tourniquet and looked around Ian's boring living room, finding just the thing for the job right across from him, next to a writing desk and a _tube_ television. Seriously?  
The walking chronological discrepancy fetched the floor lamp from its place by the other temporal anachronisms and set it instead inches from the couch, next to his disciple's shoulder.  
The ugly lamp shade removed, the wire shade holders underneath revealed themselves to indeed be perfect for the job. He just needed to unscrew the fat, _incandescent_ light bulb, which turned out to be useless, by the way. Stupid filament was rattling around in there, like it was some kind of maraca! Jesus, Ian was out of whack with reality!

Tangent aside, the IV bag snuggled in all nice and secure like, Vampiro made sure the flow clip was keeping everything on a nice slow drip. Then he pulled out the clipboard and gave everything a twice over, screwing up his face whenever he hit those seven syllable plus technical jargon patches, as if that might help him understand more of it.

He understood enough of the assessments and charts that he knew what to make of the other charts and- in the end he basically read the ranking on call's final words on the matter and went with that.  
Good thing he'd soaked up enough knowledge of applied medicine, largely by watching it be applied _on him_ , to have snatched a serviceable array of 'things he'd probably need'. Turned out that he needed most of them, and that he hadn't grabbed too many things he didn't.  
He was kind of awesome like that.

First off, per Dr. Stillwater's instructions: blah, blah, blah, need more anti-inflammatory... check.  
He produced the bottle with the exact same -or was that _almost_ the same?-, name on the label as the one on the clipboard and set it on... the ugly side table!

Next up: uh... unimportant, bland, poorly worded, there we go! Morphine!  
He'd only been able to get his hands on the smallest vial of the stuff, considering they kept it under lock and key. For good reason too; that shit was extremely addictive if the dosage wasn't carefully overseen and handled. Even wimpy Ian had seen the effects of morphine addiction on friends, and it wasn't pretty.  
Maybe it was a _good_ thing that was all he'd found? Hopefully. He didn't want to use street dealers if it turned out more was needed.  
Worry later. Drugs now.

He added what was meant to be to the IV drip and the additional pharmaceuticals he administered by following the itty bitty printed instructions on the sides of their containers.  
Man, Ian's eyes were _going_!

All the used needles stuffed into their safe disposal package, Vampiro began a procedure that the people back at the hospital would have stroked out at the description of. At lease, if you went into any detail.  
'Medically sound' wasn't the name of the game here. More like, ' _I_ know what's best for my disciple, and what's **best** for my disciple is to cut out the middle man and get back to training as soon as possible!'

They weren't going to need modern conveniences like 'heart monitors' or 'X-Ray machines' where they were going. Just good old fashioned rabbit's blood and a shit load of candles. Black candles.  
So Vampiro skulked out to Ian's tiny backyard, the tiny backyard the pea brain never so much as _looked_ at, and grabbed a young specimen from his wild rabbit breeding pen. He'd been growing these babies for a rainy day, and thanks to Matanza, today had poured.

The fuzzy thing squealed a little as the ghostly white hands of an ancient calamity removed it from the only home it had ever known. But Vampiro didn't feel bad for it. No, no, no. The coney was giving itself to a higher purpose, after all.  
What being wouldn't give its very life to commit magic on the earth? To rewind the ravages of time and breathe fresh life into fading flesh?

Vampiro came back inside the house with a small scratch on one finger and a double handful of what would soon be a cooling bowl of liquid magic, and a delicious protein breakfast scramble.  
What _Ian_ was too stupid to figure out, wouldn't hurt him. Immediately.

After hanging the rabbit up to 'dry' , he told himself that dragging the sturdy dining table into the living room would be _way_ easier than dragging Pentagon to it. Therefore, he hated himself less when the stupid legs caught on every single, microscopic ripple in the carpet and he practically had to lift the thing the whole way.

The table was higher than he thought his own back would appreciate him lifting Pentagon, sturdy fighter that the kid was, but it was also the best surface available to them, so he planned on sucking it the hell up.  
He might have been older than any human on earth, but that didn't mean he was gonna let Ian's foggy preconceptions about age hold him back.  
Look at the Queen of England! Still running a country, a good sixty years after he'd made her acquaintance. Now _that_ had been an adventure! The British knew how to debauch- er, um, that is: The British knew how to party!

Plus: dear Eliza had been a fan of his 'parlor tricks', as she called them. This one in particular being a royal favorite. Especially after he'd used it _on_ her.  
Poor Queeny liked the thrill of the fox hunt; wasn't a huge fan of the 'break' after a gnarly fall from the back of a misstepping, fifteen hands high, chestnut ungulate. Understandable.  
Nice of the hounds to provide the fox too.

She'd been pretty grateful after that. Technically, Vampiro was a Duke. Well, before he'd expatriated and decided America, with its thriving jive scene and burgeoning hippie culture was _way_ more groovy and that he'd be living there for at least the next half century, "Thank you very much, Your Highness."

All he needed now were the candles.

He'd forgotten how heavy the darn things were. Digging them out from another place _Ian_ never looked -his own garage-, and then lugging the stacked boxes into the living room got him sweating and he wasn't even wearing his robes- _That_ was the other thing! He was still walking around in stolen scrubs. Haha!

After setting fire to and sticking the weird medical outfit into Ian's fireplace, which never saw use -Vampiro understood that one though. This _was_ Southern California after all-, there was enough light that he could turn out the electricity powered annoyance on the wall and enkindle his candles.

After about ten of those, he remembered that he _still_ wasn't properly attired, so he stepped to it and shoved himself into a cleverly hidden spare robe. Right under the couch, so it didn't take long.

Half the candles lit, he grabbed the two that had been burning longest, and dripped their wax all over the table in **very** specific patterns. Droning an approximate 'B 3', interspersed with esoteric holy phrases and all manner of clicks and gurgles, the entire time.  
Helped him concentrate. Plus, consecrated the surface. So, **actually** requisite.  
Take _that_ Prince Philip!

This was where the first of the blood came in; being carefully dabbed _or_ dripped onto intersections and little mounds, until the whole table resembled a stained glass mural... of smudged blood and spilled candle wax. Whatever. It was done!

Saying a prayer and tapping into reserves of Vampiric power he wasn't sure were still waiting to be called upon, Vamipro lowered himself just far enough to get his hands between Pentagon's back and knees, and Ian's stupid, overstuffed couch.  
When he went to left, he was pleasantly surprised to find that the Luchador came into his arms as easily as a small child might. He could tell that Pentagon still weighed two hundred pounds, give or take, but his own body gave zero shits about that and pretended it was more like forty.

Not knowing how long his reserves would bless him with immense strength, the paler than pale one positioned his disciple quickly and precisely over the tapestry that the tabletop had become.  
Then he grabbed the two second-longest lit candles and drew corresponding runes all up and down the _clothed_ lengths of the prone body. Drawing additional pictographs in blood over the bare patches, as necessary.

He then reached into a little pouch and brought out two rabbits vertebrae. Which he dipped in the 'chalice' of purified blood, then painstakingly cracked to match the fractures in Pentagon's X-Ray. Which was really hard to make out in this lighting, even when held right up to a clump of three burning wicks and squinted at. But, a vampire makes due with what they have.

Invoking the name of several Pagan deities, as well as a few non-pagan ones that owed him favors, Vampiro placed the damaged chachkies on the front of his disciples' uniform.  
Right on those two spots that were beginning to _glow_.

Awe, man. He'd forgotten about this part! Haha, he'd forgotten about his favorite part!

The sanguisuge leaned in and listened giddily for the tiny sounds that bones make when forced into an accelerated 'knitting themselves together' process. It was much easier to hear the ones _outside_ the body than in. Much easier to _see_ and **feel** the progress too.

When the noises stopped, so did the glowing, and that was when you knew that that round of magic was over.  
Vampiro picked up the closer of the little rabbit bones and brought it right up to his face for inspection. Yep. The crack was considerably smaller now. And he couldn't see the the inside of the bone when he twisted it against the grain anymore. So, not bad for a first round!

Looking over the second bone, he came to the same conclusion: he'd need to renew the sacrament at least once more before the sun rose and effectively smothered the mystical ambiance of the... innumerable candles.

But the rite couldn't be doubled up. It needed a while to set, so he'd have to do something else for a whi-

His thoughts cut off when he heard a deeper inhalation from the Luchador laid out on the dining table. He leaned in closer and felt a welling puddle of pride when those funky eyes opened and focused on him.

"¿Maestro?" Came his pupil's confused first word. "¿Dónde est-"

"Shh, cálmate. We are in the living room of Ian Hodgkinson," he said, glad that the morphine seemed to be working as well as the... procedure. Otherwise, Pentagon wouldn't have been nearly as calm about the whole 'having no clue where he was or why he was _covered_ in wax and blood' thing.

"¿Por qué tantas velas?" Barely moving any air with the question, it was obvious the younger Luchador wasn't going to stay awake for long. So Vampiro decided to humor him.

"The candles? All necessary, my son. Absolutely necessary."

Pentagon's face scrunched with concentration, probably having difficulty with the translation into Spanish, thanks to his nice little morphine assisted high.  
Mm. Brought back _memories_. Woodstock had been **real** , man.

The apprentice's expression shifted towards worried and he attempted to glance past his chest. Presumably toward his feet. "No puedo sentir... mis piernas." He managed, fading fast enough that he barely remembered what he was concerned about by the time he finished the sentence.

"No te preocupes. Todo estará bien. Now, _sleep_ , Pentagon Jr." He instructed, one alabaster hand coming up to cover the other's similarly white eyes, causing them to close.

"Si, Maes...tro." Aaaand... he was **out**!  
So Vampiro took the opportunity to clean and skin the rabbit who'd given all that blood he was still gonna be needing, _and_ prepare, season, cook, and store a delicious protein egg scramble in a Pyrex on the top shelf of Ian's fridge.  
A little 'thank you' for him providing the theatre for that evening's -or 'night's'- performance of ancient magic.

Then, he 'got rid of' all the little icky bits the rabbit carcass left behind and had fun licking the cutting board and all the knives clean.  
Poor substitute for human blood, but it still sent a spark of delight through his old bones. Old 'Vampire' bones.

Without washing his hands, Vampiro stalked up to his patient, checked on that temperature, dribbled fresh blood over everything -he will admit he went a _little_ overboard with the 'spraying it out his mouth as if he was some sort of whale' bit, but a Vampire's gotta have _some_ fun-, and enacted the ritual once more.  
He listened in again as the bones did their cute mending sounds. He grinned as he heard healthier breathing sounds coming from his disciple, and marveled as even the pallor that had taken over Pentagon's skin improved.  
Woah. At that rate; that he'd forgotten to sterilize the IV site, or wear gloves for any part of the whole 'working with needles' thing, wouldn't matter!

As the darkest part of the night rolled by them, Vampiro extinguished and stored the majority of his precious candles, and generally made an effort to make the place appear less satanic.  
The candle wax was **not** coming off all that leather without a fight though, so Pentagon was just gonna look like he'd gone a few rounds against a candelabrum and lost. No two ways about it.  
At least most of the blood had come off without a fuss. Now he just looked kind of... rusty. All over.

As he put the ceremonial bunny bones away, he marveled at the spider silk thin lines that represented the cracks still afflicting his student's spine.  
The wonders of centuries old mysticism.

Vampiro watched the last of the IV cocktail of 'important' liquids and drugs drip down the line and into that _still_ full of blood arm. **Not** licking his lips at the thought of the hot, sticky, sanguine liquid running down his esophagus and pooling in his unsettled belly.

He figured holding his breath would be the safe way to go while unhooking the Luchador. So he finished securing the gauzy bandage around the younger fighter's elbow before letting out his last fresh lungful and held himself back from licking the red smear off the end of the used cannula.  
Wouldn't taste good anyway. Too many additives, thanks to the slow drip still hanging from that lamp shade holder.

He threw out, buried, or hid all the remaining medical weirdness, and his black robe, then washed the hands and face that would too soon once again be Ian's, and shoved his old, old body into the man's bed. Feeling fairly satisfied with the miracles he'd worked.  
Quite reminiscent of his 'glory days'.

He fell asleep with visions of the other poor souls he'd stolen from deaths door using that same technique. And the Queen of England. And her annoying husband, harping on in his ear about how abhorrently 'aboriginal' he was suddenly behaving.  
Guy had no clue- no _inkling_ as to how very, very correct he was. From whom else could Vampiro have learned such amazing things, after all. They didn't teach that kind of stuff in college kiddies.

Yeah. All that stuff floated around in his head until he fell asleep.

Morning found Ian rolling out of bed around the same time he did everyday. On account of his trusty alarm clock. Otherwise, he'd sleep until the sun winked out and the owls started hooting. The sun always hurt his eyes.

Uck. His mouth tasted unusually gnarly. Worse than the rare night he ate something with a _lot_ of onions for a midnight snack and forgot to brush his-  
That must've been it! He'd forgotten to brush his teeth! So he went and did just that before he could forget again.  
That was a strange amount of blood coming with the rinse, swirling down the drain along with the toothpaste.  
Weird.

And how'd he scratched his finger?

Had he capped the work day off with a few drinks? No, he didn't feel hungover. More... spent. Like he'd gone to bed not all that long ago, but that didn't feel like all either. Maybe drained was the right word?

Mr. Hodgkinson, suburban retired professional wrestler, stumbled out of his bathroom, wearing very little more than his nighty shorts and a morose expression, and out into the main part of his house. The part that had a refrigerator, a kitchen, a TV, and a- Where was the dining table? He needed that thing to eat off of! If he wanted to look half way civilized anyway!

Following the _scrape marks_ , a pretty good trail really, it did not take long to track down the missing piece of furniture. What _did_ take long, was piecing his mind back together after he broke it trying to wrap it around the sight that awaited them in the living room:  
 _Pentagon Jr._ , laid out on his favorite **eating** surface, looking for all the world as if he'd gotten himself stuck in the middle of some giant's wax seal. You know, the kind super old folks like George Washington Carver used to seal envelopes closed with?  
Never mind.

Ian took a... moment to collect himself. It had been a while since he'd woken up to unconscious people draped over his furniture, and never before in _this_ house. Those days were past him; he was far more responsible in his approach to middle age than he ever had been in his youth.  
Throwing parties that went until the last of them dropped like flies? Ancient history, my friend.

Come to think of it, the room didn't smell of alcohol. Maybe booze wasn't _that_ particular fighter's brand of poison?

Seeing as the masked lump wasn't _currently_ causing trouble, and did indeed appear to be alive, Ian -or 'Vamp', as some knew him- about faced and made for the sanity of his kitchen.  
Breaking his fast paramount on his 'list of things to do'. 'Calling the cops' dropping lower and lower on the list for every minute that went by without there being a need to punch out a hopped up overnighter.

A beautiful surprise met his eyes when he pulled open the door of the fridge. An intact, glass container of what appeared to be his favorite recipe of protein and eggs. All he needed now was a slice of toast!

As he chewed the freshly reheated bliss, picking the occasional piece of spinach from his teeth, he got to wondering how it had gotten where he'd found it.  
Had Pentagon made that delicious breakfast scramble? Probably not; the kid looked kinda beat, and- hey wait! Hadn't the guy been wheeled off on a stretcher after destroying the announcer's table with nothing but his **back**!? And hadn't _he_ hopped in the ambulance after him?!  
Why had he done that again?

Hm. Come to think of it, the entire rest of the night felt like a big blur of... tiring blank space.

Ugh, it was tiring just trying to think about it! So he gave it a rest and sorta rinsed the plate under some lukewarm water and- put on a _robe_ before checking on his... house guest.

While Vamp made himself decent for company's company, Pentagon Jr. was having himself a doozy of a morning.

He also hadn't been awake for long, and the lapsed time had also been spent largely wondering what kind of mess he'd gotten himself into, and why it seemed he was _glued_ to some hard, uncomfortable, wooden table of some kind.  
Big differences being that Pentagon had to do that while regulating his breathing and attempting to stay as still as supernaturally possible. For, every time he tried to get a lung _full_ or accidentally twitched the arm that felt like it'd been low key **stabbed** , shooting pains from somewhere deep in his back would follow. Making water build on his eyes and his next breath to resemble a whimper.

How had he gotten... wherever it was that he was?  
He remembered ghostly pale, talkin' 'you should get that checked' kinda pale, skin and a feeling of safeness. Even though... he hadn't been sure he'd make it through to dawn.  
It felt as if death themselves had invited him in for tea, and that he'd been called away before he could decide whether this was some sort of trick, or just a friendly invitation.

'Oh, yeah! That was the face!' He thought to himself when a drained, not exactly 'happy' Lucha Underground commentator appeared in his line of sight, a couple feet directly above his own head.

"Buenas días, I guess." Pentagon couldn't help but stare. This was the -alter ego? Yep, definitely the- alter ego of the dark force that'd saved him from-  
"Were you _officially_ released from the hospital last night?"

Took a few seconds, but Pentagon decoded the gobbledygook through the overwhelming thrum of the mother of all backaches. Even went so far as to form an answer.  
"No sé."

" _Riiigghht_. Okay. Did I bring you here?" The super tall guy asked, bringing a hand up to scratch at his own head stubble.

"Presumiblemente."

Heh! Six syllables; not bad. Especially for a poor schmuck who looked like he'd just escaped the clutches of death and crawled his way through a burning candle factory to...  
"Did you do all this to yourself?" Vamp asked, indicating the wax and... other weirdness. Including _his_ table.

He watched the fighter take in air, as if to answer, then screw his freaky-ass eyes shut instead.

Not appreciating the disrespect, he sighed and flopped down onto his couch. "You planning on _moving_ anytime? Your blocking the TV."

"No puedo." Was that a whine following the period? Psh! No Luchador with an ounce of pride would _whine_ in a veterano's presence. Unless...

"Is your back still broken?"

"Más probable." Vamp realized then that the younger, potentially now also 'ex', fighter was timing his answers to match his unusually shallow breathing. The kid was also sweating.  
Yep. That was a temperature all right. He even felt a twinge of pity, or regret or whatever, when the unexpected hand on his shoulder caused Pentagon to flinch and then hold his breath. As if riding out a spike of pain.

"Want an Ibuprofen?" Then, in case the kid's 'translator' was on the fritz: "¿Quieres un Ibuprofeno?" He got a _very_ 'not happy' groan in response.  
"Morphine, then?" Ian couldn't help the grin that sprung to his face at the sudden perplexed look on Pentagon Jr.'s.

Heh heh. What Vampiro didn't know, wouldn't hurt him.

 **The ride has come to a full and complete stop and we hope that it answered some of the questions you may have had regarding this rather cloaked portion of the beautiful show that is Lucha Underground.**  
 **Until next time!**  
 **~Anonymous**


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